when all the pretty birds have flown
by zedille
Summary: DOFP: Charles decides to bring Peter along to Paris. Crack, and much thirst from Peter's mother, ensues.


_40% parody of DOFP / 60% parody of my own overdramatic tendencies. Several years late, as usual._

_In the wake of XMA, I usually go with "Mrs. Maximoff" being Marya, but since this is pre-XMA and preempts the events of that movie from taking place, you can substitute Magda. (Sorry, Nina!) Either way, she has 100% less tragic backstory with Erik compared to my usual. Peter's little sister is still Lorna, for Reasons; Wanda exists but is absent here._

* * *

**Private jet hangar, Virginia:**

The responsible thing would have been to send Peter back home and keep him out of this business as much as possible. Charles considered the responsible thing, then considered how awkward the upcoming plane ride with Erik would be.

Fuck responsibility.

"Hey, Peter? You want to come along to Paris with us?"

"Yeah, sure!" said Peter brightly. "Why not, man? I've never been."

"Great. You were so helpful back in the Pentagon, I think we could really use you now. Just…" Charles thought about trying to explain the whole business of time travel, and future selves, and the fate they were trying to prevent, and so on, and gave up. "Don't let Erik near a gun, all right? Under no circumstances should you let him shoot anyone."

"This is the guy who shot Kennedy, right?" Peter said. "Yeah, I get why you wouldn't want him near a gun."

Peter, Charles decided smugly, was much more intelligent than he looked.

—

**Aboard the private jet to Paris:**

"So," Erik said to Peter. "You said your mother knew someone who could manipulate metal?"

"I was mistaken," said Peter firmly.

"… What?"

"See, on second thought, I'm sure that if my mother _had_ known a guy who could manipulate metal, who also turned out to be the guy who assassinated Kennedy, she would have mentioned it to me. Otherwise I might accidentally have let him — the guy she knew — out of prison, and then she would be mad. And probably kill him. Me. Her son, I mean, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility of her also killing the guy she knew too."

"Okay…?" said Erik blankly. He looked like he had something more to say but was still trying to untangle Peter's statement.

"I'm going to the cockpit," said Charles. Who would have thought that inviting Peter aboard would lead to _more_ Erik-related drama, instead of reducing it?

—

**Aboard the jet from Paris:**

Erik, inevitably, tried shooting Raven.

Charles was very glad he had brought Peter along, after all.

The plane ride back was somehow even more awkward than the one there, between the fact that Erik had shot at, redirected a bullet at, corrupted the sister of, tried to strangle, etc. everyone on the plane except Peter, not counting the belligerently awkward tension between the two of them.

"How's your mother?" Erik asked Peter, when Raven was taking a break from yelling at him.

"She's fine. Probably been better, when she didn't have an international terrorist asking after her."

Erik had nothing to say to that.

(Unfortunately for Charles' peace of mind, Raven _did._ And at great length.)

—

**Xavier Mansion, Westchester:**

But of course, preventing Raven's assassination of Trask wasn't the end of it. The unavoidable consequence of preventing an assassination, after all, was that the intended victim remained alive and in a position to make trouble, and they'd made enough of a scene in Paris that the timeline was still at risk. But at least Trask didn't have Raven or her blood, thanks to Peter's quick action, and Raven was on the same page as the rest of them now.

"I still think you should have let me kill Trask," said Raven stubbornly.

… Or not. Charles sighed. "Not an option. Does anyone else have any _other_ ideas?"

"Let Trask play with his toys," Erik said savagely. "Let him make his move. We are the future. We are the ones who will inherit the earth. We will show the humans that their faith in their tools is misguided. What will be left of them when their machines turn on them? To my mutant brothers and sisters, I say this: no more hiding. No more suffering. Our new tomorrow begins today."

Everyone stared at Erik.

"Did you not hear _anything_ we said about the dark path the Sentinels set us on?" said Logan.

—

**Cerebro Dome, Xavier Mansion, Westchester:**

"We'll have to play this by ear," said Charles. "We're going back to DC."

"Are we putting Magneto back in prison?" said Peter hopefully. He was clearly still nervous what about his mother might say.

"No," said Charles. "Not after we spent that much effort getting him _out_." (Not that Charles himself had done much work.) "We're dropping him off at your house."

"What?!" said everyone else (Peter, Erik, Hank, Raven, and Logan).

"Shouldn't we, you know, drop off the _underage_ criminally delinquent mutant?" said Hank, in a futile attempt to be the voice of responsibility.

"Between Erik and Peter, only Peter has proven himself capable of following basic instructions like an adult. So we're not letting Erik within a 100-mile radius of the President in case he tries anything again, and we're definitely not letting him in on this super-critical mission upon which the fate of all mutantkind rests."

"Sounds legit," said Peter, "but why _my_ house?" He, understandably, wanted to keep Erik as far away from his mother and sisters as possible.

"Your mother has managed to handle you for this long, she can definitely handle Magneto for a few hours," said Charles.

"That's what I'm afraid of," said Peter glumly.

—

**Chez Maximoff, Virginia:**

Peter's mother opened the door. "Back so soon?"

Her voice trailed off as she saw the rest of their party — Charles and Hank and Logan and Raven — and then stopped silent as she saw Erik standing behind them.

"Max?" said Peter's mother, in disbelief.

"Susanna?" said Erik.

"_Mom_!" said Peter indignantly.

—

**Still chez Maximoff, Virginia:**

"— Your father," said Erik.

"_What!_"

Peter's mother, nearby, looked chagrined. "Peter," she said pointedly, "haven't you ever wondered why your last name is my maiden name?"

"You told us you were trying to hide from your … your dark and tragic past…" Peter trailed off. The dark and tragic figure in question looked neither dark nor particularly tragic.

She continued, "When a man loves a woman — " ("_MOM!_" screeched Peter) — "but they're having trouble conceiving children, after a certain point, the man doesn't ask too many questions about where the babies come from."

"But why _him?_" wailed Peter melodramatically, efficiently conveying all his "my father is wanted internationally, and not sexually, either" angst in nothing more than three words and a very specific tone of voice.

"It may be hard to believe, but at the time, your father was actually reasonably attractive."

("'Reasonably?'" mouthed Erik.)

"He hadn't yet become, well, Magneto, and how was I supposed to know what he would end up as? In hindsight, I suppose there were several disturbing habits of his that I can now recognize as major warning signs, but there was a time when he was quite a catch."

By this point, Peter's mother was actually leering at Erik.

… Erik leered back.

Charles was entirely overcome with disgust, an unavoidable effect of the emotional backwash from Peter. Telepathy was more trouble than it was worth.

—

**Chez Maximoff, continued:**

Erik looked at Peter's younger sister contemplatively.

Their mother raised her eyebrows. "Remember when you visited in… oh, December '63?"

"_MOM!_" shrieked Peter. He'd raced over to cover the little girl's ears. "Lorna doesn't need to hear this! _I_ don't need to hear this! Seriously, wasn't once enough? What was he even doing here in 1963?"

Peter frowned, clearly running the numbers, and then turned towards Erik — "_You killed Kennedy in 1963!_ Did you come here right after that?! I can't believe this —"

"You never told me that," said Peter's mother to Erik, in a mildly scandalized tone of voice. She seemed totally unconcerned with the fact that her lover had gone from assassination to her bed, but like mother, like son. Peter hadn't blinked at the idea of breaking out a criminal from the Pentagon, either.

"I was a desperate man," said Erik soulfully. "I was wandering alone, on the run, when I came to you. The memory of that one magical night I spent with you was my only consolation during those long years in prison."

"His only consolation was his _escape attempts,_" spluttered Charles. "His _repeated_ escape attempts, I should say. That Hank and I had to help deal with."

"Only so I could return to you," Erik said immediately.

Peter's mother, rather disturbingly, looked flattered.

Peter looked horrified.

Lorna looked confused as to why Peter was still covering her ears.

—

**Chez Maximoff IV: Electric Boogaloo:**

"You two need to behave like adults!" said Peter. "No catfighting, no yelling, and absolutely NO MORE SIBLINGS until we've talked about this with Wendy."

"… You do know that behaving like adults is how you get more siblings?" said Logan pointedly.

"Wait a minute," said Peter's mother. "It's been great catching up with old friends and meeting all the rest of you, but I don't want to keep you from doing what you need to do. You must have had Peter break Erik out of the Pentagon for a reason, right?"

Peter avoided eye contact with everyone else. "Er," said Charles.

"Oh, of course," Erik said brightly. "What did you say earlier, Charles? This is a super-critical mission upon which the fate of all mutantkind rests? We'd better be going, actually. My dear, I'll see you later."

He made very suggestive eye contact with Peter's mother. Charles was almost surprised when Erik actually turned and followed them out, instead of staying to, ah, further pursue that line of thought with her.

Peter, who had already taken the opportunity to escape his parents' reunion, was strongly regretting his continued association with Charles. Charles really couldn't blame him.

—

**In the rented car outside chez Maximoff:**

Once they'd all settled back into the car rental — a not trivial process involving several arguments about who was driving (Logan), who was sitting shotgun (Erik), and who was sitting in the middle (Hank and Peter) — Charles paused to take a headcount. That was all of them, except —

— except —

"Where's Raven?" said Charles, in slowly dawning horror.

* * *

Title from ABBA, & further notes on Tumblr to follow, as always!


End file.
